December in the North

The first weekend of December we went to Lake Taupo. On Saturday we had a loooong bus drive to Taupo. We stopped a few times for a break and to see the blue springs. When we arrived at the blue springs, we wanted to go in to the water. But there was this big sign which said we were not allowed to go in. So we were really sad and didn’t go in. Ok. I’m kidding. Of course we went in anyway. It was freezing cold tho, but the water was amazingly clear and beautiful. We could not stay in very long though, because it was so cold.
When we finally arrived at our hostel, Rhodé, Kai, Luuk and I shared a room. The view from Luuks bed was amazing, so of course we had a party on Luuks bed. At least, Rhodé, Luuk and I did. Okay, that sounds wrong, we just sat on his bed while drinking something. We were just hanging out. Vikram and Claudia joined us for a bit and after a while we went to the club, right next to the hostel. Claudia lost her phone this eve too. She thought it was still in the club, but we couldn’t get in anymore… I thought her phone had to be at the hostel, so we went back to look for it, but couldn’t find it… (the next morning she found it under the mattress of her roommate, when her alarm was going off). Anyway, this evening I pinky promised Vikram that we would go for a stroll after the clubs. Of course I could not break this promise, so we went to the lake. I wanted to go to the beach. So we did. When we arrived at the lake I felt like swimming. So we went for a swim in the middle of the night, no towels, but who cares. Sooo we went skinny dipping. No just kidding, we didn’t go skinny dipping, in case you believed that. After a stroll over the beach we went back to our stuff, which was luckily not stolen or anything. The sun was already rising, so we decided to stay a bit longer to watch the sunrise, which we couldn’t see, because of the clouds. After that we went to bed. Slept for 1/2 hours… and got up again.
This day we were going to the hot springs, next to the Waikato river. This was sooo lovely, but very hot too. Went in to the cold water from the river too, to cool off. Lied in the sun for a bit and then we went back to town to chill and play some golf. I had to go back to the hostel for a minute, because I forgot my shirt there. How do I forget my stuff everywhere? I already lost one shirt, now I almost lost the second one. My jeans ripped in like, the first 2 weeks, my jacked is broken. So I was happy that I got it back, together with Kai’s towel, because he forgot his towel (at least I wasn’t the only one to be so stupid to forget something xD). Anyway, after all of that we did a boat tour to some maori carvings in the lake, which was pretty cool. The weather was amazing, so we lied on the boat in the sun and just enjoyed. When we got back to the bus, I lied on the backseats and just slept, almost all the way back to Auckland. Almost fell of the seats a couple of times. But I slept. Anywayyyyy, when we finaly got back in Albany, I went to Sander, becauuusse, it was his birthday! Had to celebrate that for a bit. So I went to bed way too late, again. But it was a good weekend, again 

10 December was going to be my last event at Total Sport. Noooeesss, I don’t want this journey to end yet!  gosh I will be so sad to leave… this was a busy week, on Tuesday it was Kezias birthday. We went SUPping, which I had never done before. I couldn’t keep my balance that well, so I did most of the 2km on my knees. Damn my legs hurt so much the next day. Fml. Anyway, on Thursday Rhodé, Sander and I went to Thijs’ place for dinner and some drinks after. We went to the club in Albany and of course I went to bed way too late. Because on Friday, Mark and I went course marking for the SPEIGHT’s West Coaster (my last event). I slept for 1 hour, when Mark was picking me up. (And I said I was going home early to get some sleep...) On Friday, we did a 4km loop, with amazing views at Bethells beach. It was soooo warm, this was sooo good. I’m so not looking forward to the cold weather I’m coming back to in January. I didn’t even bring a coat xD oops haha. Saturday was the event, got up at 3.30AM… yay ;D worked for 11 hours or so, which was nice, even though I didn’t sleep much. The people at the event give me energy to keep on going. Since I don’t drink soda, energy drinks or coffee, people keep asking me how I survive. But I’m still managing haha. After the event, we had some drinks at the event base and went home. When I got home it was the first time in 2 weeks I saw Maud, she has been travelling with her dad for the last two weeks. I got home and she was like, Do, wtf did I miss in the last 2 weeks. She felt like she missed a lot. So we had a chat and I went to bed around 10.
The day after we were going to celebrate Kezias birthday at the beach in Orewa. The weather was great in the morning, so this was good. Had some champaign and fruit. Whut, champaign? Yes, champaign at like 10AM. Went home in the afternoon and enjoyed the weather a bit more in the backyard. Almost everybody was out to Tangoriro for a weekend trip, so I was home with Maud. Late in the evening everybody got home, we watched a movie and Sander stayed till like 4AM… way too late, but I was happy I had a day off on Monday.
Monday was a bit of a lazy day. Though I went to the city in the evening, to eat dinner at Menno’s place, together with Chris and Thomas. We were going to plan our weekend trips .

The next weekend (17 and 18 Dec) was our trip to Waihi. Menno and Chris stayed the night at Rhodé’s and my place, so they didn’t have to get up really early for our drive to Waihi. Thomas was supposed to pick us up. Though he couldn’t find our house… and of course he didn’t have a working sim card or internet xD. Luckily after a while Menno saw him driving around in the neighborhood. So when we finally got all our stuff in the car, we could leave. We went to Karangahake Gorge, a few km walk through an amazing area. During this walk Chris and I got excited about a mine wagon. We ran to it and we sat in it for a bit and enjoyed the sun. After 10 minutes we didn’t see or hear the others anymore. They were right behind us before we went to the mine wagon. After a while we got out of the wagon and walked back a bit to look if we could see them. We didn’t find them, so we decided to continue the window view walk. Walked through some mines and walked even further for another few km’s. We thought we were still walking towards something, but we found out we weren’t. we were already walking for about an hour, when I got reception and the others tried to call us and text us. They were walking towards us, they said. So we decided to walk back, because there was nothing there to see anymore. Got no reception again, so after a while I got another text that the others were back at the car. We still had to walk for another hour to get back to the car. Whoops.
When we finally got back to the car it was dinner time already. So we decided to go into town and get some pizza. Which we could eat in the Hot Tub at the air BnB. Yes, we had a hot tub. We also had a house for over 10 people, while we were with just the 5 of us. This was cool. We spent the evening in the Hot Tub, watching stars and satellites. After way too long in the Hot Tub I went to bed. It was lovely to sleep in a 2person bed again, since I don’t have one myself. The next day we cleaned the house, went to a waterfall, to the beach, a thermal spa and back home again.

This was my first part of December. The 23rd me and my roomies fly to Chrischurch for our South Island trip. Exciting!!! But that will be a new blog :)